Wedding crasher? Man steals truck to stop nuptials, police say

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Andrew Curtis

To hear Utah authorities tell it, Andrew Marlin Curtis wanted to crash a wedding. Instead, he crashed a pilfered truck in the parking lot of a Salt Lake City-area church.

And now he’s behind bars.

Police in Midvale, a suburb of Salt Lake City, say the 30-year-old Curtis stole a truck last week while trying to stop a former girlfriend’s wedding. He was charged on Thursday with unauthorized control of a vehicle for an extended time, a third-degree felony.

“Stealing a car to stop a wedding? Haven’t seen it, not in my career,” Cpl. Justin Hoyal of the Unified Police Department, which covers several unincorporated areas, told the Los Angeles Times.

Hoyal said that when a friend failed to give Curtis a ride, he stole a truck that had been left running in a Midvale parking lot and drove to his ex-girlfriend’s house. He later crashed the vehicle in a church parking lot, leaving behind the truck’s license plate and bumper. The damage is estimated to be $1,000.

Hoyal told The Times that Curtis eventually returned the truck to its original parking place. He told officers at the scene that he took it while trying to persuade his ex-girlfriend not to get married.

But for Curtis, there was no happy ending, police said: The bride-to-be wouldn’t speak to him.